AT&T Mobility Health Care Plan Reaches Arbitration

Negotiations for a new health care agreement for 40,000 CWA members at AT&T Mobility entered arbitration this week after an agreement could not be reached with the company following two months of negotiations and mediation.

The company is insisting on shifting a significant share of the plan's costs to employees. This week, CWA told an independent arbitrator that AT&T is a financially healthy company and that its insistence on shifting additional costs to employees was unreasonable and unwarranted. Over the course of the three-day arbitration, CWA called several expert witnesses in support of its position.

The arbitrator is expected to submit a decision by end of November. CWA's agreement with AT&T Mobility provides for binding arbitration to resolve disputes in the health care plan. Four separate contracts cover CWA members at AT&T Mobility but all share the same benefit plans.

The CWA AT&T Mobility bargaining committee was present throughout the arbitration. They are Betty Witte, chair, District 3; Paul Klaebel, District 3; Rafael Castro, District 3-Puerto Rico; Holly Sorey, District 4; Jim Murray, District 6; Joe Sison, District 9, and John Alphonse, CWA staff representative, District 1.

"The company's position is unacceptable and is exactly the wrong direction to proceed as we try to find a national solution to health care," said Executive Vice President Annie Hill, who heads CWA's Telecom Office. "We want to find a solution that gets health care off the bargaining table, and also lessens health care costs to employers, but not at the expense of workers. That isn't the way to solve the problem," she said.